


Awakening

by SunGirl



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grunt POV, Introspection, Original Character Death(s), Psychological Horror, Stream of Consciousness, The Shadow (Amnesia), death of POV character, mature rating is due to violence, mentions of eating raw meat, mentions of vomit, not a lot of gore or anything but some pretty dark and sad stuff happens so be cautious, surprisingly those two aren't related, writing style changes as narrator becomes self-aware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2019-11-07 15:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17963012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunGirl/pseuds/SunGirl
Summary: A story told from the perspective of one of Alexander's Grunts as he slowly remembers who he used to be, and forms an unlikely partnership with the latest victim of Alexander's torment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote various chapters of this at different points over about four or five years, but hopefully it still forms a cohesive whole and makes sense! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome!

There is Before and there is After. Do not think about Before. Before hurts. After hurts too, but a different hurt. After is a dull, blurred, throbbing soreness, an ache that is as familiar as drawing breath. Before burns, burns like the light from a thousand candles, like staring into... into... There is a word. Don't know it. Can't remember. 

What is Remember? Remember is hard. Remember is like Before, only the pain is worse. The screaming is louder. It is better to be in the After. In the darkness. In the silence. In the cold. 

But After is so... so... Do not know the word for this feeling. Only know this feeling is not wanted. But what is wanted does not matter anymore. Wanting is not purpose. Serving is purpose. Serving Master. 

Master speaks, and silence is less silent. Master speaks, Master orders. Follow orders. Orders say there is Intruder. Find Intruder. Kill Intruder. This is orders. Find Intruder. Kill Intruder. Find Intruder. Kill Intruder. Find-- 

There is something here. A presence. Another thing. A separate thing. A thing with Sameness. Sameness is good. Sameness drives away the Feeling That is Not Wanted.

Alone. That is the name for the Feeling That is Not Wanted. It is called Alone. But Sameness drives Alone away. 

Thing with Sameness is close. Reach out. Feel Sameness. See Sameness. Speak to thing with Sameness the way Master gives orders. No sound. Thoughts and feelings shared. Sometimes words. Touch thing with Sameness. Skin to skin. Sharing of thoughts becomes stronger. 

"Sameness." 

"Find Intruder. Kill Intruder." 

"Sameness!" 

"Find Intruder. Kill Intruder." 

"Sameness! Not Alone!" 

"No importance. Follow orders. Find. Kill."

"But Sameness!"

"Find Intruder. Kill Intruder." 

Pain. Pain pain pain. Thing with Sameness does not understand. Looks same, feels same, but is not same at all. 

Alone comes rushing back, and the pain is worse, so much worse. 

Ignore the pain. Follow orders. Orders are safe. Orders do not hurt. Stay numb. Find. Kill.

Numbness does not stay. Think again.

Thing with Sameness Which is Not Same is familiar. Have seen before? No. Not Before. Before is nothing like this. This is After. But have seen Thing with Sameness Which is Not Same in other... other part of After. Other… time.

That is word. Word is time. But what is time?

So many things. Passing time, wasting time, loosing time. Time is in Before and After.

Slowly start to remember.

No. No. Remember is pain. Remember is part of Before. Do not Remember. Do not think. Stay numb. Stop Remember.

Can't. Can't stop. Before burns. Before is agony. Scared of Before. Scared to remember. But want to. Want to remember Before, because Before is… is… What is word? It is there, buried deep, try to remember…

It hurts. It burns with blinding, blinding light. So bright. So much pain. Light shimmering and glowing. Fire burning over every inch of skin. Pain…

But pain is better than numbness. Light that is too bright is better than dark. Burning is better than being so cold. After has always been numb and dark and cold and safe. Before is pain and light and heat and fear. But something has changed.

Slowly begin to understand. Before is not bad. Before is light. Light is good. Light only seems too bright because of so long in darkness. Before is heat. Heat is good. Heat only seems to burn because of so long in cold. Before is pain. Pain is not good. But pain only hurts because of what has been lost.

Before does not hurt because it is bad. Before hurts because it is good. Before hurts because it is gone.

It is pain, so much pain, to remember what has been lost.

There are no details. Only impressions, feelings, thoughts, glimpses that make no sense. Nothing makes sense. Nothing has made sense for a very long time.

Time. Time hurts more than anything else. Time was lost for so long. For so long there was no awareness of time passing. Only awareness of Now. But Now there is also Past. Past is Before, but it is also After. After is happening now, but it has also happened already.

Have seen Thing with Sameness Which is Not Same in part of After that is Past. Have maybe seen it many times, but not sure how many.

How long has After already been happening for? How long has the numbness gone on already, hiding from Before, hiding from Time? What has already been lost in the time that has passed? There is no way to know. Try to remember, but there is only dark, and cold, and numb. There was no Time then, so it cannot be counted.

It hurts. It hurts most of all not to know how much time has passed, how many things have been lost. That is the pain of Time.

But there is something else now, something else beyond the pain, something that has not been felt since Before. It burns, but not like the pain. Pain burns like being attacked by fire. This new thing burns like being fire.

So many new thoughts. Power, destruction, blame. Blame most of all. There must be someone to blame for all this pain. Someone has caused this. Someone has taken Before away and brought in After. And whoever it is will be destroyed. There is a word for this, this will to destroy, this need to punish the one who is to blame. There is a word for the way it burns, the way it hungers, the way it must consume.

Anger.

But as bright as the anger burns, it does nothing to dull the pain. Revenge will not bring back Before. Before is gone forever. And the pain of that knowledge is unbearable.

There is wetness leaking from eyes. Sounds coming from throat. Terrible sounds.

Crying. This is called crying.

I am crying.


	2. Chapter 2

I am.

It has been so very, very long since I’ve had an identity, since I was able to conceive of myself as a being, rather than a string of thoughts and actions that were only a means to an end.

But Now I am again. I do not know how much Time has passed since I last was. But I think it has been a long time.

Now that I know I am, I also know there are Others. The Thing with Sameness that is Not Same is an Other. There are many Others. Now that I am remembering, I am also understanding. I understand that the Others have been here for a long time, just like me. I have seen them before, many times. 

There are Memories, now, but they still make no sense, just a mush of jumbled feelings and images and impressions. But better than nothing.

And feelings!

There are feelings Now! There were feelings always, but I didn’t know how to explain. There is Loneliness, the thing that hurts when the Others ignore me. There is Anger, the thing that burns like fire and screams for Revenge. There is Sadness, the thing that makes me cry.

There are other emotions too, but they drift at the edges of my memory and I can’t hold on long enough to name them.

I have forgotten all about my Master’s orders, until they are suddenly ringing in my head, impossibly loud.

“Find the intruder. Kill him.”

But in my new state of being, I find my mind full of questions rather than obedience.

There were no questions before I awoke, but now there are many, a constant stream of them that seems as if it will never end until I overflow with Curiousity. 

That is another new emotion, perhaps my favorite so far, like a hunger in my brain. A deep, unmovable desire for answers.

Desire is another thing I have forgotten, the pure pain and pleasure of simply wanting something. Not being compelled, not following an order, not existing to serve, but having my own mind, that belongs only to me, that wants things for itself and not by the will of another.

And yet there is a part of me that does not want to have questions. 

Where am I? I don’t know. Why am I here? I don’t know. How long have I been here? I don’t know. Why can’t I remember my life before this place, if I even had one? I don’t know.

I don’t know anything. It was easier without questions, because then the lack of answers did not fill me with a cold, dark feeling, like ice and gnawing hunger. I think it is called Fear. I do not like it very much.

And yet it is familiar. My memories, unclear though they are, are full of Fear. There is Anger too, a flame lit to drive away the ice of Fear, but it does no good. There is no escape. He will hurt me, like he hurt the others.

The Others. I feel connected to them, and yet we are not the same. They do not seem to feel as I do, think as I do, they are not Awake. But once I was also not Awake. Perhaps their time is coming. Perhaps I can Awaken them myself.

I try. I can always feel their connection to me, like a tiny thread, but when we touch the thread is thicker, and I can speak to their minds the way Master does.

But it does not matter that I can speak to them, because none of them will listen. I try again and again, but each rejects me, unable to even comprehend what I am trying to communicate. I try to force them to do it, to Remember, but they do not want to, just like I once did. Some of them do have Anger though. Enough to fight my pushing, slash at me with their claws rather than leave the darkness in which they are safe. These I have the most hope for, but still, none of them understand. Not yet.

How long will it take? Will they ever Awaken? Why did I?

Again, the questions leave me with no rest. I am tired. It has been a long time since I have felt tired. Sleep was not needed under my Master’s control.

Should I try to sleep? I think maybe I have forgotten how.

Again my Master’s voice rings in my head, louder than ever, rattling my body the same way the world around me has begun to shake. And it hurts. The pain goes deep inside me, makes me shudder and put my hands against my head.

From this, I learn quickly not to touch things with my left hand. Right hand is safe. Left hand only causes more pain.

And there is already so much pain. The pain that Master’s voice brings is deeper than physical. The sound of it hurts deep down to my core, it freezes like Fear and burns like Anger. It threatens to Awaken something hiding in the back of my head, something I do not understand, but glimpse alternately as blinding light and deepest darkness. I do not know whether I want it to come Awake.

Why does he speak like this, knowing that it hurts? Why should I follow his orders? Why should I kill the intruder for him, when he has done nothing but send me words that make me ache and whimper?

Anger flares again. I am angry with my Master.

And somehow I know he is angry with me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a very dark/emotional description of an animal being killed and eaten. If you think that might bother you, feel free to skip this one.

I am growing more and more tired, and a new sensation has begun to gnaw at my stomach. I think it is called hunger. I do not like it at all.

But I do not have time to solve these problems. I have been busy. I have discovered.

I have discovered stone. The walls around me are made of it. I have discovered fire. It is small and bright and mesmerizing, and best of all it is warm. I have discovered spiders. They are creatures, I think, like me, with thoughts to make them move. Fire moves too, but somehow the spiders are different. They are alive. I have discovered many, many things, and there are still so many more.

But best of all, I have discovered water. It is cool and bright, and soothes the burning, itching feeling at the back of my throat.

Now, I am about to discover something new. I have followed a strange sound down the hallway for many minutes, always just unable to catch sight of it in the dark. It is small, and much faster than I am, moving here and there with it’s strange scritch-scratching. Sometimes I think it is in the walls.

Finally the hall comes to an end, and stairs lead me down again into more darkness. But something is glowing in the small room at the bottom. There is fire. A candle. For the first time, I wonder how the fire gets there. Some instinct, tucked back in my memory, tells me that fire needs to be created, but here is fire and it has not been created by me. I do not even know how to create fire. Would the Others make it? How do they know the way if I do not?

I am distracted again by the skittering sound I have followed here, and finally I can see the creature that is it’s source.

It is small and dark, it’s color muddy like the stone around us. It’s eyes are small and black and curious, and it’s tail is long and without fur. It looks up at me and squeaks. I think I have a name for this creature. I think I have a memory of it.

I can see dim firelight, a room made of wood and full of small sticks. Straw, my memory supplies. It is called straw. And through the straw move many of the small creatures I am seeing now, rustling and squeaking like I have heard this one do. In my memory I am angry at them, but now the feeling is distant.

Now I love this tiny creature, because it is something from Before, from my life, from this memory that is bright and warm and safe, and so unlike anything that has happened here.

The creature darts off along the wall, and for a moment I fear it will leave me alone again, but it stops to investigate something it has found. It gnaws at a lump on the floor, and something stirs within me. Food. My creature has found food. Food is the solution to hunger.

But I do not have food. I only have hunger.

A new emotion flares inside me, and I know it is called jealousy.

But I cannot take my creature’s food. My creature is good. I need it. It keeps loneliness away. It is a friend. It is my friend.

I get down on my knees to look at my friend, and it looks back at me.

The warmth inside me almost hurts. I had forgotten what it is like to have a friend. 

I reach out to my friend, put my hand over it, but it moves suddenly. I catch it with my other hand and hold it close. It is mine now. My friend.

But something is wrong. My friend is making such unhappy sounds. Pain fills my belly as I look down and realize what I have done. I have touched my friend with my left hand. Left hand causes pain, and now I have given pain to my friend.

I’m sorry.

I try to say it out loud, so my friend will understand, but my voice sounds so strange, not at all like my Master’s voice that echoes commands in my head.

I try again, but still there are no words.

Why can’t I speak?!

The sounds from my mouth are terrible, like pain and anger and fear, like a monster.

Monster.

The word presses in on me painfully, like fear but heavier, attacking me from all sides, trapping me, taking the breath from my throat, making my stomach wriggle desperately like the small body of my friend, which suddenly goes still and stiff.

I learn, or rather remember, a new word.

Death.

My friend is dead.

I do not like death.

It is pain far worse than anything I have felt, worse than fear, worse than the scraps of memories that escape me, worse than my Master’s voice screaming in my head.

Every part of my body is fire and ice and piercing pain like drawing blood from my very core. I feel as if something is being ripped from deep inside my chest, on and on, ripping deeper and deeper until I can stand it no more and I scream, scream because maybe that will end the pain that pounds loudly in my head, maybe I can scream louder, make more noise, drown it out.

But I cannot.

And my scream, like my voice, does not sound as I know it should.

I look down at my hand, at the body of my friend.

But my hand is not a hand, is not what I know a hand should be. It is sharp and cold and hard, made for causing pain. Hands were not made for causing pain.

My friend is so still, so empty, where once it was so shinning with life.

But I have taken life away.

I have used my not-hand to cause pain and death for my friend.

The not-hand was made to cause pain and death.

Was I made for the same reason?

I do not want to be.

I do not want to bring pain and death, and if I must then I do not want to Be at all.

I do not want to be a monster.

I look at my friend again, and hunger is gnawing at my belly, eating me up from the inside, like my Master’s voice, roaring, demanding to be answered.

‘Your friend is gone.’ The hunger tells me. ‘It has no use for its flesh. It will not miss it.’

But something in me cries out at that, my stomach wriggling fiercely as if to fight off the hunger. I do not want this.

The hunger wins.

I snatch the body of my friend from my not-hand and feel it crunch and seep, fluid, blood, running down my body with nothing to stop it. I remember something called chewing, but now the best I can do is push and mash with my not-hand, until finally the body of my friend slides down my throat like a lump of stones.

My whole body lurches, and I can almost feel my friend return from it’s journey to my stomach.

This is called sick. I feel sick.

I have eaten my friend. I am alone again.

I look down at my not-hand again, made for bringing pain and death.

I am a monster.


	4. Chapter 4

I have discovered another new emotion. It is called Guilt. It is slow, and sick, eating away until there is nothing left.

I should not have eaten my friend. But more than that, I should not have killed it. I should have been careful. I should have been gentle.

I remember gentle. Fingers running through soft hair. A hand on my shoulder. I see a face in my memory, and something inside tells me that face is important. There is liquid coming from its eyes. Tears. Crying. Like I did when I awoke. A hand reaches out to wipe away the tears, soft, comforting, gentle. Somehow I know it is my hand.

A sound distracts me and I turn to see a glimmer of light farther down the hallway. Fire. It is moving, but not like fire normally does. It is bouncing up and down, side to side, swaying and dipping. I remember light moving like this before, but my mind is fuzzy around the words.

Light. Fire… Oil. Lantern. Carry.

Yes! Lantern! Lantern is for carrying fire!

But what-- who, is doing the carrying?

I move forward, my feet scraping against the floor.

The lantern spot jerks, and then it is moving rapidly away from me, fast feet-scraping sounds moving with it.

So I move fast too, even though it hurts, following the lantern and the feet sounds. I can see a creature now, arms and legs going all directions as the lantern swings and throws shadows.

Suddenly the thing turns, and then is gone, taking the light with it.

At first, I do not understand what happened. Where has the thing gone? It turned, and then… A doorway. The thing has gone into another room. And then the light went away. The thing made the light go away. Put out the fire.

Yes! Light the fire, then put it out, then light it again! I remember now.

But the thing is important. I cannot get distracted.

Where did the thing go?

It was running, I was running, then it turned, went away… It went into a room and put it’s fire out. It is still in the room, in the dark… Hiding. The thing is hiding.

Hiding means so many things in my memories. Sometimes it is happy, playing, smiles, fingers on lips, stay still so I can win. But sometimes it is fear deeper than anything. Hide, hide, stay away, please, God, don’t let them find me, he will hurt me like he hurt the others, he will make me like them, he will make me a monster!

Monster.

Am I a monster?

Now is not the time for this. I must find the thing. The thing is in the room. Hiding.

I step into the room. It is dark without the light, and I cannot see. But I can hear, hear a sound like wet scraping, short and fast. I know that sound. It is a sound of hiding, but not the good kind. A sound of hiding and fear. A sound of oh god oh god it’s coming closer what if it sees me what if it can hear me breathing?

Breathing. That is the noise. Fast breathing. Hiding breathing. Fear breathing.

The thing is making that noise. Follow the noise and find the thing.

I get closer to the noise, and the breathing gets faster. I get even closer, and I can start to see the thing through the darkness, arms and legs tangled around its body, head bent, hair covering its face.

Something stirs inside me. This thing is not a thing. It is something else, something more. It is curled in on itself, shaking and fear-breathing, but something about it seems right in a way nothing else here has.

I crouch down to get a closer look and it wails, a sound of pain, a sound of fear, a sound that is unmistakably human.

Human.

This thing is a human. This thing is a man.

And he is frightened. So much pain, so afraid.

Of me. I feel ice creeping through me as I realize.

He is afraid of _me_.

“Don’t be afraid.” I say, but just like before, with my friend, it does not come out sounding right.

My heart hurts to remember my friend. I will not make the same mistake again. This time I will be gentle.

I reach out with my right hand, which is like a hand and does not cause pain. Gentle. Fingers running through soft hair. A hand on his shoulder. He is still shaking but he turns his face to me and there are tears coming from his eyes. Crying. Be gentle. I reach out and wipe away the tears.

He stares at me, his eyes are wide and still afraid. Why is he still afraid? I am being gentle.

I touch his hair again. I put my hand on his shoulder again. There are more tears on his face, so I wipe them away again. I touch his hair again. I put my hand on his shoulder.

When there are no more tears to wipe away, I touch his hair over and over again. Something about this is familiar in a way that teases at the edges of my mind, frightening, but making me desperate to know more.

“W-W-What-- W-Why--”

The man is speaking, still shaking in his body and his voice, but he is speaking and he is not crying. That is something. I nod to encourage him, some instinct telling me that this will help. The man’s mouth moves like he is trying to speak, but no sound comes out.

“Y-You--” He says after a moment. “Y-You’re not-- not g-going to k-kill me?”

I shake my head.

He stares.

“Y-You unders-stand me?”

I nod.

“But I-I-- I d-don’t understand…”

This cannot be answered with a nod or a shake. I try to speak again but it just comes out a jumble of meaningless sound.

“You-- You must b-be different from-- from the others.”

I nod.

“Why?”

I stare at him helplessly. I do not know how to answer.

“You-- You don’t want to hurt me?”

I shake my head.

He closes his eyes, nods.

“Right. I… alright. I… I need to find Alexander. Can you help?”

Alexander. I know that word. Why is it familiar?

“Alexander.” The man repeats. “Your master. Can you help me get to him?”

Master. Master is Alexander. Master who hurts. Master whose voice is like ice and fire. Master whose presence pulls at me even now like a song calling me to sing with him, a song that kept me in the dark for so long.

I nod.

Yes. I can help find master. And then I will help kill him.


	5. Chapter 5

I have found a new friend.

The memory of my old friend, the small creature, still hurts, but my new friend makes the hurt softer. My new friend makes me feel safe, calm. He reminds me of the Before that I can still barely remember.

My new friend is afraid, he is angry, and more than anything, he is sad.

I am all of those things too. I feel the same things that he feels. We are the same. The other creatures I have seen are not like me, but he is. I have finally found sameness, and it fills me with something new, a warm light expanding in my chest.

I know that it is called joy.

Joy is familiar. Like my new friend it’s familiarity is distant, buried far away in the Before, but becoming slowly closer and clearer.

From out of the murky darkness that is the Before, the image of a face comes floating back to the surface. It is the same face I remembered when I found my new friend, a young face, a familiar face, a face that I… love.

Love. How could I have forgotten love? 

And how could I have forgotten the person I loved most in the world? How could I have forgotten my son?

This is my son, this face I am seeing in my mind. It’s clear as day, his eyes looking up at me, a smile on his face, a word on his lips.

“Papa?”

I have a son.

Or at least, I did. Before.

In the Before, I had a son, and I was a man. A man like the one standing beside me.

But not anymore.

This is the After, and I am a monster.

Finally, I understand what separates the Before from the After. It is the event that turned me from man to monster.

“Why-- Why have we stopped?” My new friend’s voice reaches me slowly, and I realize that I am standing, unmoving, in the corridor.

I stare at him, at what I used to be.

“I was…” I try, the words coming out garbled again. It is my mouth, I realize. It is no longer built for words. “I was… like you.”

“W-What?” My friend asks.

There are tears in my eyes again as I look at him, raising a hand to point.

“Like you.”

“Me…?” He asks, still struggling to understand my speech.

I nod, pointing to myself.

“Before.”

“You… you were me?” He says, frowning, before awful understanding dawns on his face, eyes going wide and round. “You were _human?”_

I nod again.

His face goes pale. He is shaking all over. He turns away from me and makes an awful sound, soon accompanied by a smell that my every nerve seems to rebel against.

I recognize this, a response to the same sort of sensation that nearly overwhelmed me when I killed and consumed my small friend. Sick. 

Knowing what I used to be is so distressing, so contrary to what is right, that it has made my new friend sick.

What I am now must be truly unbearable.

I know in that moment that there is no hope of going back for me. I can never leave this place. I can never go home. I can never see my son again.

My life, my humanity, is gone.

Master-- no. _Alexander,_ took that away from me. And he took me away from my son.

My friend is looking at me again, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. I can tell from his face that his anger has won the battle with his fear, just as mine has.

“I was always going to kill Alexander.” He tells me. “But now it’ll be for both of us.”

I want to thank him, to tell him what it means to me. I want to tell him how I feel, the things I know, the things that happened to me. I want to tell him about my son. But it is too much. I could never make him understand all of that with my ruined voice.

All I can do is nod, and lead on towards Alexander.

We only encounter one other creature, the ones I was like once, before I awoke, before I remembered. I try to make it understand, but when it does not, cannot, I stand between it and my friend, and for the first time since awakening I use my killing hand with intention.

But the next obstacle is one that I do not recognize. One that I have never seen before. A thick, red oozing thing that radiates fear. It stretches all the way across the hallway, blocking our path. Looking at it, I understand instinctively that it is here for my friend. That it can kill him, and is bent on doing so.

My friend understands this too. His eyes go wide again, hands shaking and teeth grinding together with a horrible scraping, cracking sound.

“No!” He screams, pacing back and forth in front of the thing, shaking his head. His voice sounds cracked and broken. “No, please! Not now, not yet! Just let me kill him first, I need-- I _have_ to kill him!”

And looking at him, looking at the thing in his path, suddenly I understand.

I can never leave this place. I can never go home. My life is done, over, stolen by Alexander. But my friend still has a chance. He can go on, he can fight, he can kill Alexander and get revenge. But more importantly, once he does, he can continue. He can escape. He can have a life.

Even if I move forward far enough to face Alexander, even if I succeed, there will be nothing after for me.

I have no future.

My friend does, but not if he stops here. Not if this oozing thing destroys him.

This is how I explain. This is how I tell him, since I cannot use my words, what his promise means to me.

I step forwards, putting my safe hand on his chest to keep him back, before raking my killing hand across the surface of the oozing fear. It cuts, and I feel a change in it, feel it’s will, it’s deadly intent, turn towards me. 

Good.

I slash it again.

On the third strike, my hand becomes trapped, the redness sticking and grabbing. Hurting more than I expected.

My friend does not understand, struggling against my grip as I hold him back.

“What are you doing? You can’t fight it! It’ll kill you!”

I shake my head, letting him go to grab and kick at the barrier. It grabs back, squeezing and constricting, burning, killing, but I have made a hole large enough for my friend to fit through.

“Go!” I say as clearly as I can.

“What? No, I can’t--”

The thing is consuming me, moving up my arms and legs, eating me alive.

“Go!”

“But you-- it-- you’ll die!”

I nod.

“No, I-- I’ve hurt so many people, sacrificed them to save myself, I can’t-- Not again! Not one more!”

“Please.”

He is staring at me, aghast, shaking his head.

I’m running out of time. I will be dead soon.

“Please.” I repeat, hoping will understand my words. “For me. Kill him.”

He stiffens, jaw set, hands no longer shaking.

“I will. I promise. I-- I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” I assure him as he steps safely through the gap I’ve built. The red ooze has almost completely cocooned me, starting to spread across my eyes and mouth.

The last thing I see before it covers me completely is my friend looking back at me as he moves to safety.

“Go.” I tell him with my last breath, not knowing if he will even hear it with the ooze muffling my already distorted speech. “Live.”

And then I am gone.


End file.
